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                          MORE WOKE! Film Reviews for Spring ’19

We Shan’t Leave You Again Without Some Dope Films to Step To

                                                         by

                                        Lucas Avram Cavazos

Beautiful Boy #### premiered a couple of Fridays ago here in the Iberian peninsula, and this is a film that hits on so many levels, especially within the confines of the USA at a time when more people are dying from drug overdoses in North America than almost anything else. Telling the story of Nic Sheff (Timothée Chalamet) and his horrid struggle with meth (but really all manner of drugs) and how that affects his familial relationships, most significantly with his father, played to impeccable perfection by Steve Carrell. Director Felix van Groeningen makes his English-language debut with such a tour de force that it’s ever so apparent that he has been slowly crafting his oeuvre over the last decade-and-a-half. (MUST SEE: The Broken Circle Breakdown) Adapted from two separate autobiographies by the Sheff family (dad and son) on the subject matter of a young adult’s journey into massive addiction, the director’s take on this subject matter becomes a lesson in patience, in futility, in the understanding of the addiction process. There is a specific scene that stuck with me, a moment of medical jargon that simply emblazoned itself in my memory because we, the viewer, start to learn just how certain drugs (most especially methamphetamine) severely inhibits and erodes pertinent cerebral functions…often to the point of no repair. So as you watch the deterioration of this wonderful young man, it becomes all too real that sometimes the only way to help anyone, even when it’s family you love, is to let them the hell GO! The thing is…that hell is exactly what you may feel when doing so, just like the father feels he has caused his son. You especially feel that at one brutally moving scene towards the end of the film, when it’s fair game to say that all is lost. For anyone who has ever struggled with drug addiction or has experienced this in one’s family, the truth that it tells is something that is as redemptive as it is heartbreaking.

Pet Sematary ###…It’s sad to say that this remake is just a bit better than the first interpretation that did its best to butcher a Stephen King classic three decades ago…Can it be that long ago now? Yes…yes, it can. That said, it does something that outshines the original film and highlights the need of more discussions on our very westernised inability to deal with our fear of death, an inevitable part of life. In that vein, they respect the tenants of the King novel because that is truly what he was aiming for, this critic would say. Revamping the narrative of Louis and Rachel Creed fresh from a move to Maine from Boston, along with their cute-as-heck kids Ellie and Gage, plus kitty Church, we see the perfect little family getting away from the city to a life of relative tranquility, or so one thinks. After a series of odd deaths, the one that strikes fear into the hearts of men is the greatest fear any parent can face. A bit earlier in the film, their new neighbour Jud (John Lithgow) mentions not to venture out alone in the woods, for fear of the danger within. This naturally acts as a foreshadowing on things to come, but it also helps foment some fertile ground to talk about the Wendigo, spirits that possess humans or animals, making them monstrous…which incidentally is also used in medical lexicons as being a psychosis. When that greatest of parental fears occurs, after a seeming resurrection of the dead family cat, the need to try and practice the same possibility of burying their daughter in the forestal pet cemetery occurs, so we get to see what happens. It almost becomes almost too much to bear. Sequencing slight moments of creepiness with dramatic tinges makes things ever so gripping at times, but the languid nature of a rather quick film culminates in an eerie, if expected, ending. Better for the local box office perhaps had it been released around Halloween, this stronger piece makes an effective case for turning a formulaic remake into a wannabe think-piece of sorts.

Boy Erased #### Dealing with a situation that can not be overstated in its ridiculous tactics to make life a Mike Pence wet dream, this latest celluloid effort on the topic, after some time I might add, of Christian, gay conversion camps is likely the best one yet. I recall a film from years back called But I’m a Cheerleader with Natasha Lyonne that took a comedic look at this topic, as well as, Chloe Moretz’s dramatic The Miseducation of Cameron Post; however, here we get a dose of reality that paints these camps in such a light that it’s hard not to see why these institutions should be closed and deemed unlawful. I realised a bit into the film that the acting in it was brutally honest and frighteningly real, at times like watching life being played out in front of your eyes on a screen. Lucas Hedges stars as a sexually-confused, Christian teenager in this practically perfect and poignant outing by actor/writer/director Joel Edgerton, who creates a canvass of middle-class, deep-US believers’ lives in a way that definitely struck a chord to this youngish Judeo-Christian watching. Baptist minister and wife Marshall and Nancy (Aussie royalty Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, respectively) quietly shuffle their son off to a conversion camp called Love in Action, in an attempt to reprogram him. Director Edgerton plays programme director Victor Sykes, a man whose likely quasi-sordid past is the demon that forces him to reign over this camp like a military official…Flea of Chili Peppers fame makes the best cameo as a teacher at the camp, good Lord! Detailing all of your family’s dirty secrets, and thereby airing out all dirty family laundry, is just one of the many ploys used by the camp to “cure” their clients/patients/students, I mean…what can you call these poor kids? Your heart will likely break watching the insanity, so do be warned, but there is a redemptive factor that shines through with the incredible performances by Hedges and his cinematic parents, and stay through the credits…they catch us up on the au courant life of the man on whom this story was based, Garrard Conley…tears.  

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                            WOKE! Film Reviews for Spring ’19

  We Shouldn’t’ve Left You Without Some Dope Films to Step To!

                                                    by

                                    Lucas Avram Cavazos

This first weekend of ‘Setmana Santa,’ as it is called in Catalonia, ushers in the fateful reality that we’ve all thankfully made it past a long, cold winter. It also welcomes with it the understanding that this year, Holy Week/ Easter Week/ Spring Break Week has come rather late, by well over a month, and since this is the first time in a month that I’m gracing the blogosphere with my critiques just before the week leading up to the 3rd Annual BCN-Sant Jordi Film Fest, it’s time to get woke. And that’s why this critic had to get all sorts of motivated and prepared as we dive into the real Movie Season 2019. Let’s get started with a few outings now, and I’ll return with a few outings more later on in the week. Without further ado…

Dolor y Gloria ####-1/2  This may be the best film that has been released so far this year. The fact that it has been so eloquently served up to us by Pedro Almodovar, my favourite Spanish director, may make things seem biased, to which I’d query… Have you seen the movie? This could easily be one of his strongest efforts, if not THE strongest, in years and the way that Almodovar has crafted it, using character actors he once worked with in his earlier heyday, has been expertly mapped out to weave a tapestry of torturous drama and comedic, sometimes drug-addled, delights. What is also apparent is that Pedro is very likely speaking about himself, as a creator, a director, a man.  Detailing the current and flashback-to-the-60s life story of Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas), a revered if almost-forgotten director and writer from the 80s and 90s, we also get a peek into the history and mentality of a Spain and a (Movida) movement put away onto a shelf for far too long. What we find about Mallo is that whatever life circumstances have been thrown at him, he has managed to take them on with a certain, sad aplomb. It is a testament to his waning bravado that Mallo then goes about trying to reconnect with those long-forgotten members of his film past, briefly dabbling in heroin whilst using it as a metaphor for his need to deal with past pain bodies. In its own way, I’m quite sure that Almodovar did exactly the same thing in processing his own mother’s passing a few years back, and it brings into question the very nature of how every human being varies in their handling of life’s issues. I dare say that this film is something bordering on a frighteningly sharp therapy session and frankly, the performances here, especially by Banderas (and to a smaller extent, Penelope Cruz as his mother via flashbacks) are something from a prized possession of actors’ genius. One can only hope that award nominations get thrown their way later on this year…Superb Spanish cinema!

Perhaps the title gives a slight hint but the basis of the film that is Us ###-1/2 goes a long way in reminding all of US that evil rarely just dies…case in point, Donald Trump. Not to digress, so this second outing in big screen film direction by comedian/writer Jordan Peele attempts to go a step further in modern-day, U.S.-American, social-class politics. After his impeccably-timed, incredibly-successful and Oscar-nominated Get Out roared a somewhat sleepy horror genre/audience back to life, we now get a continuation or ode on a similar theme. Showcasing upper middle-class protagonists on screen who are not white has thankfully become more common since the 80s and 90s, so when it’s still possible to inject a bit of realism, I applaud the creator. That said, there is so much going on in Peele’s latest socio-cultural opus that when the horror-action takes over, you almost find yourself relieved; which isn’t to say the film lacks in punches and pull, but you definitely start to feel the languid draw of boredom a few times throughout the nearly two hour film. After the film opens in 1986 with a real advert to a throwback charity campaign, we quickly follow young Adelaide through an anecdotal moment that seems to come reeling its frightening head when she’s an adult again. The star draw of Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o and Marvel wiz kid Winston Duke cannot be overstated, as they certainly bring some fan base and critical darlings with them, but the way they handle the mum and pop characters of Adelaide and Gabe Wilson is superb…plus the camaraderie between their cute as heck, and then bad-ass as heck, kids is adorable. When on a getaway at their lake home near Santa Cruz, CA, an unfortunate and sudden group of unsettling events is what finally jolts us, the viewers, wide awake when the sordid nightmare of a flashback-like attack commences and carries on for the rest of the fraught film. What creeps the whole thing out even more is that the attack comes from a psychotic group of almost familial doppelgängers. What struck me as odd is that Peele seemed to lose a sense of coherence just as the film started to pick up speed with the action, thematically and within a sense of the genre. The acting keeps the film bouncing along thankfully, but after the socio-cultural punch that was Get Out, I suppose we were all a bit wanton for more.

The Kindergarten Teacher ####  Another tandem Netflix-cinema house offering, this US-American take on an Israeli original is just as good…thankfully. With an ending that is as unexpected as it is deserved, this little indie feature will give you something to ruminate for days after. which in turn is why I gave it such a sufficiently high score. Let’s talk. The monotonous life of a primary education teacher can be one of serenity or hardships, and I can only surmise that it would mostly depend on one’s intestinal fortitude, though I sinerely doubt, I’d be cut out for it. Exquisite actress Maggie Gyllenhaal plays mid-40ish Lisa, pretty mom to two teens and loving wife, who encounters something extraordinary one day whilst teaching her sweet class of five and six year olds. An incredibly gifted five-year old chap named Jimmy (read:cutest little tyke on-screen EVER!) has the uncanny ability to tap into his inner recesses and pull out beautiful poetry that takes on meanings and lives of their own, painting a canvass of wonderment for our long-suffering Lisa. You see, what is easy to decipher as one watches is that Lady Lisa has slowly begun waging her own, tiny war on her mundane life by the commencement of living vicariously through this little man-poet. When she steps out of her bounds and finagles a way to take little Jimmy to a Bowery-based poetry slam, this very NYC borough tale takes a turn for the cringe-worthy as we slowly watch an empathetic woman lose herself in a self-delusional, self-pitying way. This complicated if completely relatable piece of celluloid will challenge anyone’s views on what young tykes are capable of feeling, doing and demonstrating. It will also leave you with the pertinent question of deciding what you think happens to the main characters as the film ends. Brutally honest and highly poignant.